Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

268

A soldier-not fierce and terrible

Only in strokes; but with thy grim looks, and
The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,

Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world
Were feverous, and did tremble.

269

A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge.

270

My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen; my crown is call'd, content;
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.

271

Sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace.

272

When that the general is not like the hive,
To whom the foragers shall all repair,

28-i. 4.

17-ii. 1.

23-iii. 1.

15-iv. 3.

What honey is expected ?" Degree being vizarded, The unworthiest shews as fairly in the mask.

[ocr errors]

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place,

W

Χ

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,

u The meaning is,---When the general is not to the army like the hive to the bees, the repository of the stock of every individual, that to which each particular resorts with whatever he has collected for the good of the whole, what honey is expected---what hope of advantage? Constancy.

Masked.

W

Here is more than a hint of the Copernican system. Copernicus died 1543; twenty-one years before the birth of Shakspeare,

And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: But, when the planets,
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,

What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny?
What raging of the sea? shaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate2

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixture? O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right: or, rather, right and wrong
(Between whose endless jar justice resides)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And, last, eat up himself.-

This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.

And this neglection of degree it is,

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace, that is sick

a

y Without. Corporations, companies.

* Force up by the roots.
© Absolute.

b Divided.

Of his superior, grows to an envious fever

Of pale and bloodless emulation.

273

While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home:

26-i. 3.

For government, though high, and low, and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one concent; Congruing in a full and natural close,

Like music.

Therefore doth Heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor:
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons, building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale,

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,—
That many things, having full reference
To one concent, may work contrariously:
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark;

As many several ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams run in one self sea;
As many lines close in the dial's centre;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat.

20-i. 2.

274

One would have ling'ring wars with little cost;
Another would fly swift but wanteth wings;
A third man thinks, without expense at all,
By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.

21-i. 1.

275

Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war.

23-iv. 8.

276

Mirror of all martial men.

21-i. 4.

277

Were it good,

To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast? to set so rich a main

On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?

It were not good; for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope.

278

18-iv. 1.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.

279

Omit no happy hour,

19-i. 3.

That may give furtherance to our expedition:
For we have now no thought in us but France;
Save those to God, that run before our business.
Therefore, let our proportions for these wars
Be soon collected; and all things thought upon,
That may, with reasonable swiftness, add
More feathers to our wings.

280

20-i. 2.

This might have been prevented, and made whole,
With very easy arguments of love;

Which now the manage of two kingdoms must

With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

281

Good fortune bids us pause,

16-i. 1.

And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.

23-ii. 6.

282

The fat ribs of peace

Must by the hungry now be fed upon.

283

God, if thy will be so,

16-iii. 3.

Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!

284

24-v. 4.

Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,

To arms invasive?

285

16-v. 1.

Now join your hands, and, with your hands, your

hearts,

[blocks in formation]

We will untread the steps of damned flight;
And, like a bated and retired flood,

Leaving our rankness and irregular course,

Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd, And calmly run on in obedience.

288

I find the people strangely fantasied;

Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams;
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.

289

16-v. 4.

16-iv. 2.

They'll sit by the fire, and presume to know

What's done i' the Capitol: who's like to rise, Who thrives, and who declines; side factions, and give out

Conjectural marriages; making parties strong,

« ForrigeFortsæt »